


Never Grow Up

by beetle



Category: Inception (2010), Mysterious Skin (2005)
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-14
Updated: 2013-04-14
Packaged: 2017-12-08 11:35:01
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con, Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,874
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/760877
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/beetle/pseuds/beetle
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Cobb catches glimpses into Arthur's troubled childhood through dreams.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Never Grow Up

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I own nothing but my own diseased brain.  
> Notes: Set post-Inception, vague spoilers.

Dom leans against the stoplight, arms crossed over his chest.

 

“So, whaddaya think of the new compound?”

 

Looking around them at the crisp, clear lines of the architecture—a Gotham-esque, art deco city on an overcast day. Arthur’s own architecture, for once—the Pointman nods tersely.

 

“Well, Yusuf’s certainly outdone himself, this time,” he acknowledges, but still with an air of doubt and dissatisfaction. “The transition  _was_  seamless.”

 

“Faint praise for such a fine drug.” Dom grins—he does that more and more, lately, and it’s still a surprise to everyone, himself included, that he does. That he  _can_ , after everything—and sweeps an arm out, nearly bitch-slapping a projection that pauses only to glare before hurrying on its way. “C’mon, Arthur, if the quality of the dream holds up for the duration, I think we could use this on the Maroni job.”

 

Arthur lets his eyebrows drift up and up, and puts his hands in the pockets of his tailored slacks. He’s in his vest and shirt-sleeves, which are rolled up enough to show corded, mostly hairless forearms. “Look, Cobb, it’s one thing for  _us_  to be Yusuf’s guinea pigs, but the Mark? That’d be damned irresponsible.” Arthur shakes his head, dark eyes apologetic, but unwavering.

 

“I hear you, Arthur, I do. But you’ve gotta hear  _me._  You  _know_  that I wouldn’t risk the job if I didn’t think Yusuf’s really onto something here.” Dom gestures broadly, lit up with the kind of excitement that he’d rarely felt after Mal’s death.

 

But it’s as if Fischer wasn’t the only one who got Incepted, seven months ago. Along with his family, Dom’s regained a new lease on life, and a renewed love of dreamsharing—of  _everything_. It's like being high all the time, and Dom can't spare a moment to wonder when he'll come down.

 

He can’t say the same for his Pointman, however. If anything, Arthur’s become even more solemn, more grim, and he barely ever talks anymore. If he’s cracked a smile since the Fischer job, Dom couldn’t swear on a stack of bibles that he’s seen it.

 

“—really think Yusuf’s struck gold with this batch, don’t you?” Arthur’s asking tiredly, absently, staring over Dom’s shoulder and frowning. Squinting into the so-far-docile crowds of projections on the busy crosswalk behind them. “Yeah, the transition is smoother, and the dream is so clear, I’d think this was waking life if I hadn’t seen us go under, but . . . it feels kinda strange, too. Can’t you feel it? A little  _too_  real.”

 

“And this is a bad thing?” Dom claps Arthur’s shoulder, and the Pointman winces, shifting subtly away from Dom’s hand. He’s doing that more and more, lately. Not that he was  _ever_  the tactile sort, but he’s almost fanatical about avoiding touch, these days.

 

Dom sometimes forgets, and each time he does, being reminded confuses him a little bit more. _Hurts_  him a little bit more.

 

“Maybe, after a few more trial runs and some more testing, we could try it out on an easier job, but until we’re two hundred percent  _certain_. . . .” Arthur trails off in that absent tone. Now, he’s not only staring over Dom’s shoulder, but stepping past him, as well, his mouth dropping open.’

 

“Shee-it,” he drawls unhappily, shaking his head once, a negation that recognizes its own futility. “No, fuckin’ way—you  _can’t_  be here. Not after all this time.”

 

Frozen inside ( _God, please don’t be Mal_ , he thinks, shivering), Dom turns and sees:

 

A man and a boy in soaking wet little league uniforms, holding hands and standing at the opposite corner, watching them between the crowds of Arthur’s projections. And the projections, which have suddenly gone still and silent . . . they all look like space aliens.  _Literal_ space aliens, like from the X-Files, or some damn television show: huge, dark almond-shaped eyes, set in grey faces with recessed features, atop stalk-thin bodies in human clothing that bags and sags.

 

They’re staring directly at Dom.

 

In their midst, the boy sways and moans like a kicked puppy, eyes blank behind his oversized glasses. The man beside him grins, waving sedately. They’re both blond, though they don’t have the look of father and son. In fact, the boy looks a little like James, and the man looks like . . . some sort of creepy seventies porn star, all big mustache and sideburns.

 

“Heyya, little buddy!” The man calls, looking directly at Arthur, and all the other projections shudder and turn their attention from Dom to him. But Mr. Pornstar seems oblivious, still waving and grinning. “Bri and I’ve been waitin’ down below for you—gets awful cold an’ lonely in Limbo without my special boy!”

 

“I’m not your boy, you hear me, you sonuvabitch?  _I’m not your fuckin’ boy!_ ” Arthur yells, his voice cracking like Dom’s never heard and, startled, he glances over at his Pointman, a tentative _you know that guy?_  on his lips, where it lingers, withers, and dies.

 

Because Arthur’s not by his side anymore. In his place there’s a small, dark haired boy in the same dripping-wet little league uniform, breathing hard and panicked, as if he’s being hunted. He looks up at Dom with frightened, deep blue eyes under long bangs, and except for those eyes, this kid could be a miniature of Arthur.

 

“He’s  _dead_ —tell him he’s  _dead_ , Cobb,” the Arthur-boy hitches in Arthur’s low voice, but still with that unfamiliar flat, twanging drawl. Tears roll down his face as slow and thick as crude, and he grabs Dom’s fingers with a tiny, clammy hand. “ _Please_? I don’t wanna go back, and I can’t change it if even if I did, can’t save him—can’t save  _myself_ — _oh, fuck_!“

 

The Arthur-boy sniffs wetly, glancing back at the two blonds. When Dom follows his gaze, he takes an uncertain step back. The blond boy has gone corpse pale, livid bruises covering a nauseatingly elongated neck. His head hangs at an unnatural angle and his eyes are milky, dead marbles in his sheet-white face.

 

At his side, Mr. Pornstar is no longer handsome. His face is older, bloated, covered in mottled bruises, and his neck . . . his  _throat_ ’s been cut so deep, it’s amazing his head is still on.

 

But he’s still smiling that damned smile, even though most of his teeth are broken. Still waving even though his hand is bloody and missing fingers.

 

“When Eric told me Brian hanged hisself . . . I went crazy. Went AWOL, tracked  _him_  down, and killed his ass,” the Arthur-boy grits out. “It was supposed to be  _over_.” He laughs, and there’s more than a touch of hysteria in his voice. “He’s dead, Dom. I  _know that_. I made  _sure_  of that. But I just can’t get away from him, can I? No matter how fast or how far I run.”

 

Arthur-boy hangs his head, reaching behind him, and out of nowhere he comes up with Arthur’s favorite pistol, a Jericho 941 Desert Eagle, which he promptly tucks under his chin in an awkward, two-handed grip.

 

“We never had a chance to grow up. It’s all so fucked,” he says in his cracking, strangled, miserable voice, looking up to meet Dom’s eyes again, and this time his own are Arthur’s dark, fathomless brown. (And though Dom knows for a fact that Arthur wears colored contacts, he’s never known Arthur’s original eye color.

 

He does now, but other than that . . . he knows, as he’s beginning to realize, very, very little about his Pointman.)

 

“I guess I’ll always be his little helper . . . his special little prize,” Arthur-boy— _Arthur_  whispers, tears still running down his face as he shakes his head. His eyes glitter with something far too bright and brittle to be sane. “You know, the bitch of it is . . . I  _wanted_  it. Hell, I don’t think I ever wanted anything else half so bad.”

 

With that, Arthur pulls the trigger before Dom can even begin the arduous task of processing what he's seen, let alone reacting to it.

 

When the body hits the ground, it’s  _Arthur_ ’s. The Arthur  _Dom_  knows, or thought he knew. It’s _Arthur_ , missing most of his face and at least half of his head, blood and brains spattered all over the ground, all over his fine clothes.

 

Horrified, Dom drops to his knees and stares at the lifeless body for a few moments; then the faint, unmistakable strains of [Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFRuLFR91e4) begin to play. It’s far too soon, and that means Arthur’s awake, and about to wake Dom up, too.

 

In any event, without its original architect, the dream is already quaking, already crumbling at the edges despite Dom’s will propping it up. His style and Arthur’s, when it comes to architecture, are night and day, ice and fire. They never seem to fit together. Now is no exception.

 

Frustrated and sweating with the strain of holding up something that’s too big, and too destined to fail, Dom looks up through the milling, whispering crowds of alien-projections; he sees the man and boy are still standing there.

 

The man, Mr. Pornstar, is still grinning, happy as a pig in shit as he waves at the corpse. "See ya soon, kiddo!"

 

Dom’s eyes narrow and he pulls Arthur’s body into his lap, heedless of the mess he’s making of them both. Mr. Pornstar laughs, and the boy at his side . . . the boy sighs tiredly, raising one hand to touch his broken neck. Dom is once more reminded, poignantly, of James. He has to fight the instinct to reach his hand out.

 

This child is far, far beyond his help or his comfort.

 

“He won’t believe you, but tell Neil I said . . . it’s not his fault, and that I’m sorry,” the boy croaks, his voice as soft and dead as his pinched little face. Then he’s gone, along with the pornstar, swallowed up by a crowd of Greys, all of which are once more focused on Dom. Their milling and whispering has taken on an air of confusion and loss. Instead of mobbing Dom and tearing him to pieces, they reach out their grey, spidery hands in supplication. The noiseless slits that pass for their mouths gape open in silent pleas. They look eerily like the tragic figure from [The Scream](http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/f/f4/The_Scream.jpg).

 

Dom clutches at Arthur’s body, holding it close. He knows, now, that he’ll never have a chance in waking life. That Arthur will never let him, or anyone else get this close again. He will never allow himself to be comforted or commiserated with. He will never, ever let himself finally grow up.

 

“I’m sorry . . . I can’t help you,” he tells the projections, and they recoil, to a man. Dom closes his eyes and tells himself he can smell Arthur’s cologne over the thick, coppery scent of his blood. _Non, Je Ne Regrette Rien_  rings in his ears like the worst lie anyone ever told. “I’m so sorry.”

 

Shuddering, he frees the gun from Arthur’s still-warm fingers and puts it to his temple.

 

*

["Oh, darling, don't you ever grow up,](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tVvz3V8C9BU)  
Don't you ever grow up, just stay this little.  
I won't let nobody hurt you, won't let no one break your heart,  
And no one will desert you.  
Just try to never grow up.  


 

 


End file.
